Steralising PET bottles.

[Robdog]

Hi

I will be bottling my first ever brew this week and i will be using brand new PET plastic 1ltr bottles.

Ive had a quick read of how some people clean and it seems to differ as to what people use.

I was thinking of filling up my bath with hot water, adding either bleach at the correct concentrations ot steralising powder then half filling all bottles, put the lid on and give it a good shake and leave for 10 mins then emptying and filling each one half full with clean cold water from a jug and giving it a shake and repeating this 3 times.

Would this be ok?

Ideally id like to blast them under the cold tap but the bottles are to big and my tap has scum on it so i dont want the bottle to come into contact with it so was thinking oof using a steralised plastic jug to fill them and then shake.

Id also soak the caps seperately in steralising powder or bleach solution before i did the above.

[Madbrewer]

I would go for thin bleach, just becuase it does me for everything and I would use the bath but keep it empty.

Stand up the bottles in it, add a couple of tea spoons of bleach per bottle & 'fill' every bottle.

Then, leave for 20 minutes and rinse each bottle at least three times!
(Actually after the third rinse take one outside the room you bleached in and see if you still whiff chlorine from it - repeating the rinsing if necessary).

If you are on a meter or really need to reduce water, do the bottles in two batches, decanting from one bottle to another after twenty mins (but don't rinse the empty bottles till all bottles are ready to be rinsed.) Soak the caps in a bleach water solution & rinse too.

[edit1now]

After bleaching and rinsing you must rinse with strong-ish metabisulphite to kill any remaining chlorine otherwise you'll get TCP beer like my last two

[Madbrewer]

After bleaching and rinsing you must rinse with strong-ish metabisulphite to kill any remaining chlorine otherwise you'll get TCP beer like my last two

Generally I am ok without this, though I am very thorough with my rinsing and I do have half a tsp of camden in my initial water treatment ... which may help.

[Scooby]

I reckon it's a good idea to rinse with sodium met just to make sure but 3 rinses should suffice.

IMO 2 tsp of bleach is too strong, I make up a solution of 2.5ml thin non perfumed bleach in 1l cold water.

[Robdog]

Could i not just use steralising powder because ive just found an extra tub of it i forgot i add.

Ill use the same principles though ie stand them all in the bath and fill with water.

[Madbrewer]

Could i not just use steralising powder because ive just found an extra tub of it i forgot i add.

Ill use the same principles though ie stand them all in the bath and fill with water.

That would work!

[Big Al]

I am going to use 2.5ml of thin bleach per pint bottle,
leave them for about 20 mins then give it a rinse and will see how that comes out